“This work is important because people around the world are united by similar issues and concerns.”

Laura Lewis, director of field education, School of Social Work

University at Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Two professors in the University at
Buffalo’s School of Social Work have launched a graduate
student and research institute to encourage global activities that
extend trauma-informed treatment, human rights perspectives and
other themes championed by the UB school to other parts of the
world.

The Institute on Sustainable Global Engagement is the brainchild
of Laura Lewis, director of field education, and Filomena Critelli,
associate professor.

“After seeing faculty and students involved in an
increasing number of global activities, we felt it was important to
make these more visible,” says Lewis.

“We have students completing their social work practicum
in other parts of the world — Macedonia, Thailand, South
Korea — and a growing number of partnerships with
non-governmental organizations and schools of social work.
These experiences can be transformative for students and for
participating faculty.”

Lewis says the institute will encourage students and faculty to
think about social problems more broadly and learn new ways of
responding to these concerns.

“Our study abroad trip to the post-Soviet Republic of
Moldova, for example, increases our understanding about what is
happening on the world stage and events in Ukraine,” says
Lewis. “We hope to further attract innovative projects and
partnerships. This work is important because people around the
world are united by similar issues and concerns.”

The new institute begins its work with an International
Association of Schools of Social Work-funded project regarding
transnational migration. The project will examine the experiences
of transnational families who live for prolonged periods of
separation due to the migration of one family member. This
phenomenon is one by-product of an increasingly globalized world
and illustrates the ways in which a global lens is increasingly
necessary to understand and address social problems, according to
Lewis and Critelli.

The institute’s planned activities include research and
partnerships that emphasize cross-national collaboration to address
educational opportunities. There will be cross -national research
projects, faculty research and scholarship focused on global issues
that identify innovative social work and multidisciplinary
responses to them.

“Social workers need to be more knowledgeable and have an
understanding of the larger political and social issues that are
going on in the world,” Critelli says.

“We really recognize that as social workers — and
preparing people to work in social work — there is a need for
a greater global perspective to the work,” Critelli says.
“So much of what we do is very connected to globalization and
to global trends.”

“Our School of Social Work emphasizes ‘from local to
global’ in its mission statement,” says Lewis.
“So it’s building on the current existing foundation of
the school’s global activities, emphasizing our curricular
focus on a trauma-informed — and human rights
issues.”

A trauma-informed approach recognizes that trauma is present in
a large percentage of the population and works to avoid repeating
the trauma. A human rights perspective complements this approach
and is fundamental to social work because of its emphasis on
universality of rights on the basis of being human. The
rights-based approach represents a shift from looking at social
problems, such as poverty or lack of education, as
“needs” to understanding them as “rights for
all,” emphasizing the need for respect and advocacy to ensure
these rights.

“We see these ideas integrated in the work of our
colleagues in other parts of the world and have much to learn from
them,” says Lewis.

“When you live your life in one country, it’s easy
to lose sight of all the ways you are privileged. Working in an
academic institution in the U.S., we have access to
resources. I’ve seen people doing great work in
countries like Moldova, where Amazon.com does not deliver.
The books we can share and materials make a tremendous difference
there. But you see people doing tremendous work. These people
are being forces for social change, supporting the rights of people
— people with disabilities, for example — building
community supports where there have not been any before.”

Colleagues at Prerana, an NGO in India that operates a shelter
for children of brothel workers in Mumbai, asked the young
residents what they think social workers need to learn.

“Social workers should ensure that they possess a
non-judgmental attitude and do not force their choices upon
children,” the residents answered.

“And that really sums it up,” says Lewis.

The two social work professors are connected around their shared
interest in international social work. Critelli launched a course
on this topic in the School of Social Work in 2008.

One of Critelli’s particular areas of expertise has been
research based in Pakistan, where she has chronicled how
women’s activism has helped curb dramatic widespread
violations of women’s rights.

In India, after meeting with social workers at a college, a
hospital and several non-governmental organizations, Critelli and
Lewis learned their Indian counterparts take a different approach.
Not only do they work with clients on an individual basis, they
also go back and advocate on a governmental level for changes in
policy.

“We don't often operate that way in the U.S.,” Lewis
says.

The two also have twice traveled together to India, where they
saw many innovative programs and witnessed firsthand the
application of human rights approaches to address such social
problems as child labor and commercial sexual
exploitation.

They are seeking ways to sustain partnerships with these
organizations to promote professional and scholarly exchanges, and
engage in joint research to seek solutions to these issues.

“As social workers, we care about the equitable
distribution of resources, we care about the needs of marginalized
populations and we care about basic human rights,” says
Lewis. “We see work being done that is truly inspiring and
there is always potential for collaboration. I get excited
about bringing together faculty, practitioners and students using
online tools. Technology makes it possible to continue
conversations from a distance; conversations that first began
face-to-face.”

Currently, the two are working on a project related to
transnational migration, with post-Soviet countries as their
focus.

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